On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:04:16 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Yes. Old Albic would not be the way it is now without the online
>conlanging community. Many of its features are inspired by what
>I saw in other people's conlangs. Well, nobody exists in isolation;
>we are all influenced by what we see around us.
True. However I often feel embarrassed, 10 or 20 years later, when I look
back on something I created and realize how intensely it was influenced
by what others were doing. For example _all_ of the poetry I wrote in my
early 20s was an echo of Samuel Delaney's novel _Dhalgren._ I can hardly
stand to look at it.
I fantasize about going into seclusion and trying to scrub all the
external influences out of my brain. (I wrote about it as the final entry
in my angsty personal blog at http://hrick.livejournal.com/ ) I guess
such a scrubbing is not really possible. sigh
Jörg, do you ever _regret_ being influenced?
---
Richard K. Harrison of Florida